Blue Eyeshadow Suicide Blonde
Hairbrush masturbation	dark passage powderpuff jazz
	but I’m the same as I ever was
grass skirts and red robes	alone in my bedroom
	sticking clothes under		pretending I’m pregnant
something about diamonté windowsills, whippoorwills
	swollen breasts, sticky lashes
feed the cats like they’re babies, I average
	three pageants a day.

I get used to this mess		the new normal cleansing
	my face		a glass chapel
with disposable alcohol wipes
but you’ve got me worried	about my bad energy
looking out the window	afraid to touch moths
	blood down my leg	you say I’ll go blind from the movies
so lonesome, devotion	      sundumb in the tennis courts
	untamed with chlorine-burn hair
but if you’re smart you’ll see me overcome
	the big hill by my pink enemy’s house
but if you’re smart you’ll be overcome
	by the two-minute movie
my web of love on the Scopitone: 

					I wear a yellow dress
						push daisies through my lips
					I roll in the grass with a dark man unarmed
					until sex is unnamed 	until water comes on
						until fangs take the heart of attention	
					and he tightens the key on my neck.
					
	

(The Cat Upstairs Dying, I Meditate on) Lime, Sex for Money
You say it’s too late.
	I say the last day of her life could be quiet
crime wave		you say it’s not raining		fill your head with canned pictures
	crime pays.
			Or it’s puffy horror and my coat sleeves get bigger
		as we move deeper into what we claim is pleasure.
The truth’s in the toxins
	or the truth’s in the Hollywood Bowl.
The truth’s in our wax heads		our plastic skeletons
	we had a chance but we gave it up.
	I sleep in my eyemakeup
	I pull back my bangs
I start the day with two tears and a background of flames.
	I see a ghost on the steps	and I keep time in my sleep.
	I keep so much time for my sleep
or I start the day in a long sweater with a flower
	surf song on the Scopitone	just that and panties
change to a sundress	you mutter if you could get any more whimsical
	but the chopping takes you out of the equation.

Cash, cigarettes		the unwitting philosopher blur
	the cat cries	the orange plastic snail
a passkey out of range		a blunt haircut		dedicated to B-movies
	it’s amazing how a small screen opens this up
and she’s dying but not all that loud
	so I listen to cha-cha to make myself glad.

Note: Jean-Luc Godard’s film Vivre sa vie was “dedicated to B-movies.” 


 
To Beat the Heat, Shoot a Squirt Gun
	to the night sky      but who has the time?
It seems like all I do is wait
	for me or the cat not to die. I can’t weigh the options
in the soft green-painted room.
	I’m already mourning with visualizations
didn’t know the end was so dark
	two cheating people	a faraway tombstone
	and all of those carwrecks
trapped in my heart	
	since all I can take is cloudy and cool.
I lose track of washing my hair
	the black sequined evening gown with the false rose
	and the mask fits a dog or a doll
but I didn’t think you’d catch on.

It’s summer in the spotlight	it’s a melodrama balance
	between making art	and taking it off
twinkling and cranking it out again
	and it feels safer to hide it from you
behind the pump swings	in my red majorette dress with gold buttons
	tawny in the park spotlight with the moths
as the grown-ups scream into 	    the void of electronica
	    that the queen in the leopard bikini
abandoned our lawn chairs or Hollywood
	for a pink grave in Pennsylvania or Texas
	a fight over the estate
and all I can take is the clot
	that pretty petty head sliced off

lodged and stuck in the windshield
	like a fat spider
and I feel sick-sad for summer and smokestacks
	sweet cream and her broken bones
and I’ll let you have her planchette
	I can’t help it
and I’ll stop dragging her corpse to the Dairy Owl
	once the money runs out.


 
Keep It Together
Constraint makes me honest		at the pet hospital
	or waiting on the hot bench to be picked up after swimming
more time to stretch time.
	I spend all day deciding
I miss my Tennessee afternoon bedroom
	orange poems and root beer	
before I knew you and was loose about witchcraft.

	Density supersedes delicacy.
I spent the days turned away from the salt
	unholy trimester	cold feet
		but we need a flat yard for firewalking
	corruption	sad caterwaul.

	I contextualized sex with teenage paperbacks
stolen from Kmart prostrate	after the hard-stuffed
		dog at the carnival.
	Maybe it burned
like the wordlier girl’s pink-red bedroom.
	I couldn’t pronounce	her name, Penelope
	I couldn’t live with the hot boy’s tongue inside me.
I wanted to watch until I became her.

How about we meet outside and trade stick-on earrings
	before either of us cares about sunscreen?
I’ll explain how I’m afraid of that porcelain doll
I’ll say how I’ll save money and the decision is final
	you could shatter the doll	you could saw her in half
on a striped towel in your father’s garage.

I read some songs about sick decisions
	at the cat’s bedside
one black glove	one white glove
	one glamorous cocktail
I think about being manhandled or married
	how our love wouldn’t stand such a strain—


 
Party Girl
		Sometimes it’s better to watch something in color
    	not feel hooked or ashamed.
All of your lies are big like the movies
	but I’m tired and useless	sweaty, untamed
halfway through the summer
	half catharsis talking tough in silk and sequins
half euthanasia.
		Maybe I need midnight lace dirty daze
	to change my possession	maybe just drive
		maybe I need to give up and give shape
	put my axe to the wheel of the time-lapse and grind
		or just get amnesia.
When you live by the river you can’t walk at night
	the air smells like fish	    you eat cakes small and cackle
		in your purple corset.

Split-screen teach me how to shoplift and wear lipstick
	queen of this or that talking tough
with sequins on my sleeves	the queen of no right way
	of sleeping her life away
and it’s no surprise I’m not at the ocean
	and it’s no surprise my life is small poison
		I live by the promise of ice cream
next to the smokestacks. I read lots of books
	think lots of puff dresses. In my old car
I think like a pig. I act like I miss you
		in my hot pants and bra
 	quiet bottles of strawberry nail polish.

I feel better reading about death
	in terms of science with a host’s introduction
I feel better color-noir		with blue balloons
	my fire and ice séance		high-waisted bikini
since who could leave a girl named Angel Eyes?

My ovary aches but I’ll make my escape
	taking only small doses of Hollywood Babylon
Fatty, Virginia Rappe	    Olive Thomas’ blueberry, mercury eyes.
	I’d like a difference in form
		some bright blush or a pink opera cape
		some being alone is authentic enough
			as real as a cat’s yowl
		in this, our July-time of sorrow.